A Dispatcher starts all IBM Cognos 8 services configured and enabled on a computer and routes requests. The dispatcher is a multithreaded application that uses one or more threads per request.
Dispatcher can route requests to such services as: report service, presentation service, job service, monitor service.
A dispatcher can also route requests to a specific dispatcher to run a given request. Requests can be routed to specific dispatchers based on load-balancing needs or package requirements.
During the process of IBM Cognos 8 gateways configuration, a list of universal resource identifiers (URIs) of target dispatchers is available (oredered from the most to least preferred). When a dispatcher starts, it registers itself with Content Manager, so each dispatcher is aware of other dispatchers. If a dispatcher fails, requests are routed to another dispatcher based on the list.